Many questions that have come in to ask for advice through our various channels, in some cases, we can feel the mood of "burning out" of the business owner, which may be the same symptom as many other restaurant operators. Because this year must be considered a difficult year for restaurant operators as well as other business sectors. With the epidemic situation that almost made normal trading hours disappear for the whole year, it has a direct impact on the business and the minds of the entrepreneurs. However, if anyone is feeling discouraged, burned out, and doesn't want to continue, we would like you to consider the following before making any decisions.
Why are you burned out? Sales are poor or there is no profit?
First, ask yourself why you feel discouraged and dissatisfied. I believe there are only a few causes of discouragement and dissatisfaction. The main ones are poor sales and no profit. The more you sell, the more discouraged you become, and the more you hurt because you have to keep investing and the people around you keep making things worse. If these two factors are the cause, I would like to invite you to reflect on what you have done and see if you have overlooked any important points.
Especially in the matter of cost structure of running a restaurant, the first important thing is do we know the break-even point of the restaurant or not? Because the break-even point is one of the first things that entrepreneurs must know. Because when you know the break-even point, you will know the symptoms or basic health of the business in order to plan and find ways to solve sales problems later. If you don't know this point, it's difficult to continue. There are many entrepreneurs who skip this point, causing problems, making sales worse until they feel discouraged and want to quit.
Break-even point formula
Example of break-even point calculation
| Fixed Cost
Rent 20,000 baht/month
Salary: 32,000 baht/month
Equipment rental and other costs: 6,700 baht/month
Total Fixed Cost 58,700 baht | Variable Cost
The cost of a beverage shop is assumed to be an average of 31%.
Other expenses average 10%
Total Variable Cost 41%
= 99,491.53 baht/month (rounded up to 100,000 baht)
Once we know the break-even point, we will know what condition our business is in. If you find that your sales are still far from the break-even point, don't be discouraged, because once you know the symptoms, you will be able to find the right medicine to treat them. Start by fixing them in any way you can to get your sales to break-even point. Fix each problem one at a time. The solution is obvious: you have to increase your sales by setting a sales estimate (Project Sale) of how much you have to sell each day. Once you know the sales estimate, it will lead to an Action Plan to achieve sales according to the Project Sale. You see, there is a way out if we know the problem points.
In order to achieve sales, Project Sale requires cooperation from all departments. They must meet, plan, and do their homework on which menu items to promote each day and how to promote them. Encouraging employees to participate is also important. What do employees gain from promoting sales? In some cases, it is necessary to use a tool called incentives to help energize employees to help promote sales. The more sales increase, the more special benefits employees receive in return.
In terms of marketing, you have to review what you have done in the past. Does anyone know your shop? Have you given importance to marketing in the past? If not, you have to be serious about it, especially marketing on social media, including doing reviews through influencers or bloggers. You have to allocate an appropriate marketing budget. Don't forget about the delivery sales channel. If you don't have it yet, you have to have it because it will be another channel that will help increase sales opportunities. All of these are basic methods that will help your shop's sales reach the break-even point. Then you can plan for profits.
Add fuel to the fire by looking at examples of successful shops.
Another method that I would like to invite for those who are feeling burned out is to take yourself out of the shop and various problems for a while and go out to see other shops, small shops, medium-sized shops, large shops, and see what they are doing. Find inspiration from shops that have not given up until reaching the point of success, which is having good sales, regular customers, and remaining profit. Take yourself to find opportunities to talk to the owners of those businesses or follow the stories of those people from various media that are available to follow. Watch to encourage yourself because there are many examples of cases where people started from zero, did not give up, and it was not easy to succeed, but they got through every problem. These examples are good fuel and also provide various ideas that you can take back and apply.
When the crisis caused the storefront to close and foreign tourists disappeared, she refused to back down until online sales soared to 600,000 baht/month. How did Khun Natthananporn Kanathipsakulsiri, owner of Sushi & Ramen Factory, resolve the situation?
Click to watch MHA TALK, uncovering the success of every famous restaurant, here.
Ms. Oi, owner of Palate Bar & Restaurant, agreed to quit her job, investing all 3 million baht. It was going well...but then the virus hit, causing her income to be 0.
Chef Po and Ms. Bow, experts from MHA, travel to provide advice and share promotions to attract customers to the shop to reach the break-even point and techniques to increase sales with boxed lunches.
Click to watch MHA ADVISE: Turning Business into a Professional in Every Episode Here
Staying stuck in a problem will only make us tired, discouraged, and burn out, and it will also make us unable to see the way forward. Take a step back for a while and look at other people's problems before looking at your own shop's problems from another angle.
Add knowledge to move forward in the right way
Most importantly, even if we know what problems we have, if we don't know how to solve them, we won't know how to proceed. Therefore, knowledge is an essential weapon that entrepreneurs must have because knowledge will help us to deal with problems. Currently, there are many sources of knowledge about restaurant business management for study.
At MHA, we have prepared knowledge in all aspects of restaurant management, divided into subject categories, selecting only experts in that field of knowledge to share with entrepreneurs to learn for free, without any expenses. Click to see all courses here. You can register for classes in the upper right corner for free.
But in the end, if you can't do it, don't force yourself.
But in the end, if we have done our best, or when we find the break-even point and find that the opportunity to make sales reach the break-even point for this store in this location is difficult, stopping and not forcing it to continue and causing more pain may be a good choice. But before reaching this point, I would like you to go back and review and complete all the points above first.
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